Natural Therapies
Big growth in natural health practices
About 10 million people use some sort of complementary or alternative medicine every year in Britain and about half of them see therapists.
Among people with cancer, use of unorthodox medicine rises by a third. Overall the nation spends £1.6 billion on such treatments, some of them supplied by GPs.
About half of family doctors (49 per cent) offer access to some form of complementary or alternative medicines (Cams) in their practice, from vitamin pills to hypnotherapy. This compares with 39 per cent in 1995.